The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum The Passion movie and the 2nd Commandment

Here is an interesting article about Mel Gibson's movie.

What do you think?

John,

I am grateful that you included the link to that article by Pastor Ron Gleason. I was beginning to wonder if I was the only one who stood opposed to the upcoming Mel Gibson movie for the very reasons which Gleason opposes it; it is a clear violation of the 2nd Commandment and an affront to the Sovereign Lord.

There were many salient and profound points which were made in the article, but there was one in particular that really struck me. It was a quote from Jochem Douma:

Perhaps this quote caught my attention over any of the others because I have found this to be true in my own life when speaking with so many people; not non-Christians only but unfortunately with those who profess to be followers of Christ. I'm afraid that the overwhelming majority of professing Christians in the Western World no little of the "True Living God" (see the discussion in our study on the WSC on this Board), but follow after a "god" of their own imagination.

Thanks again for bringing this up. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

In His Grace,

You all might find this interesting as well: http://www.understandthetimes.org/c21.shtml

Awww come on, how can a film that the Pope and Dobson liked be bad? Well, that bad? Well, that terrible? Well, okay not so good? Well, maybe that isn't drastic enough <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/stupidme.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Had an email month or two back praising this film as the best thing since grits and asking all Christians to get on the band wagon and go see it and take all their friends.

Sounded more like a ploy to make money for someone than anything Christian.

Didn't read both articles, but Gibson is part of an anti vatican 2 movement - conservative catholic (in case some didn't know)

There were miracles reported on the set a number of time as well as all the "blessings" people have been getting. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/puke.gif" alt="" />

Isn't this just a part of the current attitude of Grace and Law that has Grace abolishing Law. I wonder how many ministers were red faced Monday morning because they cancelled Sunday evening worship to host a SuperBowl party on their big screens. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

If it wasn't for the film breaking the 2nd commandment, I have to admit that I would probably be 100% for this film.

Mel Gibson has taken it on the chin for this film and he doesn't really care.
From what I hear critiques are calling the film anti-Semitic, but if it is true that the film tried to keep as close to the gospels as possible, then obviously these same people would say the same thing about the Bible.
So on that matter I commend Mel Gibson for not being politically correct.

Tom

They say it is, but in reality the script is largely based upon the gospels and the work of a couple of 18th (?) century French mystics.

(Fred) James White has an excerpt from the German mystic Emmerich currently on his homepage: www.aomin.org She is the lady whose writings Gibson used as commentary to supplement the biblical record of the passion.

Fred

That subtitle says it all.

At first I wasn't sure whether it would be permissible for me to see The Passion. But over the past few months, after reading a number of articles and reviews, I have come to the conclusion that I will not see it. Everything I have read about it is focused on the "emotional impact" or the "visual artistry," not Scripture.

Here are a couple reviews that I've come across. I'll highlight some quotes from each.

1. Review by Douglas TenNapel. [Note: There is objectionable content on this website, but I haven't found the same review anywhere else. The reveiwer, by the way, professes to be a Christian.]


2. A Tie-In Made in Heaven.

Dear Kyle:

Thanks for that post Kyle, it was very revealing, especially the excerpt from TenNaples article.

It graphically illustrates, I think, how truth, the Scriptures, probably depicted powerfully and accurately in places, is blended with error to make what on the whole is a very believable lie.

It occured to me again that the Lord knows what is best for us and when He tells us not to do something, like make graven images, He knows all the reasons why, though we may not see them. Best to just obey.

In Him,

Gerry

Here's something more along the lines of the mystic-al infulence: http://www.understandthetimes.org/c22.shtml

Just in case you can't get enough on this <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/bash.gif" alt="" />

Today I received David Cloud's analysis of Mel Gibson's soon to be released film, The Passion of Christ. Since some of you have written me and asked what I thought of Christians going to see it, I am forwarding this analysis. In many ways, this film has some of the same flaws as Campus Crusade's The Jesus Film: http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Psychology/ccc/.




MEL GIBSON'S FILM "THE PASSION OF CHRIST"

February 6, 2004 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, [email]fbns@wayoflife.org;[/email] for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -

Hollywood actor-director Mel Gibson's controversial film on the death of Christ is proving popular among Christians even before its February 25 release date.

The graphic, $25 million film "The Passion of the Christ" depicts Christ's life from the Garden of Gethsemane to the resurrection.

After a private showing, Billy Graham praised it. Mission America Coalition plans to use the movie for evangelism. Campus Crusade is promoting it. Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in southern California purchased 18,000 tickets. The Evangelical Free Church of Naperville, Illinois, purchased more than 1,000. Two members of Wheaton Bible Church in Wheaton, Illinois, have offered to buy out two screenings of the movie at a local theater. After Gibson showed part of the movie to a convention of the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship, he received a standing ovation. Afterward, the daughter of the organization's president laid hands on Gibson and asked Jesus to "bind Satan, bind the press, we ask you, Lord" (Peter Boyer, "The Jesus War," The New Yorker, Sept. 15. 2003). Worship Leader magazine for Feb. 2004 offers a free guide to Gibson's movie and says, "There has never been a film like it! Powerful, life changing, an unprecedented opportunity for evangelism & discipleship." Robert Schuller of the Crystal Cathedral was given a private showing and afterward proclaimed, "It's not your dream, this is God's dream. He gave it to you, because He knew you wouldn't throw it away. Trust Him." The movie has been recommended by psychologist James Dobson and by Don Hodel, the current president of Focus on the Family. Ted Haggard, president of the National Evangelical Association, called Gibson "the Michelangelo of this generation." The Catholic League purchased 1,200 tickets at $9.75 apiece and will make them available to members for $5. The film was shown to members of the Vatican Secretariat of State, the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and all of them expressed unanimous appreciation and approval.

A positive review of the movie is making the rounds via e-mail under the name "Paul Harvey's Comments on The Passion," but it was actually written by Roman Catholic apologist Keith Fournier.

Gibson belongs to a Traditionalist Catholic group that performs the mass in Latin, abstains from meat on Fridays, eschews ecumenism, and other such things that were changed at the Vatican II Council in the 1960s. Gibson built his own Catholic chapel, called Holy Family, near his California home. During the filming, Gibson attended a Catholic mass every morning with the misguided desire "to be squeaky clean." The script was translated into Aramaic and Latin by Jesuit priest William Fulco.

When asked by a Protestant interviewer if someone can be saved apart from the Roman Catholic Church, Gibson replied, "There is no salvation for those outside the Church" (The New Yorker, Sept. 15. 2003). This was the official teaching of Rome prior to Vatican II.

The movie is not based solely on the Bible but also on the visions of Roman Catholic nun-mystics St. Anne Catherine Emmerich and Mary of Agreda.

Of the visions of Emmerich, Gibson said, "She supplied me with stuff I never would have thought of" (The New Yorker, Sept. 15, 2003).

Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824) was a German nun who allegedly had the stigmata or wounds of Christ in her body. Emmerich supposedly "had the use of reason from her birth and could understand liturgical Latin from her first time at Mass." During the last 12 years of her life, she allegedly ate no food except the wafer of the Catholic mass. Her visions on the life of Christ were published in 1824 under the title "The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." They are still in print and were consulted by Gibson. An advertisement for Emmerich's Life of the Virgin Mary says, "This book is filled with unusual, saintly descriptions that are not recorded in the Gospel story -- descriptions that supplement and illustrate the Biblical narrative in a way that makes the actual Scripture passages truly come alive." Thus these alleged visions go beyond the Bible. According to Emmerich's visions, Protestants also go to purgatory but they suffer more than Catholics because no one prays for them or offers masses for them. She taught that it is more holy to pray for souls in purgatory than for sinners who are still alive. Her deceptive visions on the suffering of Christ describe His scourging and crucifixion in great detail, giving many "facts" which do not appear in Scripture. For example, she claimed that Christ "quivered and writhed like a poor worm" and that He "cried in a suppressed voice, and a clear, sweet-sounding wailing" as He was being beaten. She even claimed that Christ "glanced at His torturers, and sued for mercy." She also claimed that Jesus suffered from a wound on his shoulder more than any other.

Mary of Agreda (1602-1665) was also a Catholic nun and visionary mystic. Her entire family entered monasteries and convents in 1618, which means that her mother and father disobeyed 1 Corinthians 7 and separated for the sake of the Catholic church. She was given to trances and even claimed that she could leave her body and teach people in foreign lands. Her book The Mystical City of God is about Mary. Like the visions of Anne Catherine Emmerich, those of Mary of Agreda go far beyond the Bible. For example, she claimed that though Joseph ate meat, Jesus and Mary seldom did.

Not surprisingly, therefore, Gibson's film contains errors when judged by the biblical account. For example, after Christ's arrest and as He is being escorted to the high priest's residence, He is beaten, knocked down, and thrown off a bridge. After Christ is whipped, Mary gets down on her knees and wipes up the blood. Mary is shown assisting Jesus on the way to the cross, with Jesus telling her, "Behold I make all things new."

Jim Caviezel, who plays Jesus in the Gibson film, is also a staunch Roman Catholic. He prayed to St. Genesius of Arles and St. Anthony of Padua for help in his acting career. He has visited Medjugorje to witness the site where Mary allegedly appeared to six young people. One of the things that Mary allegedly told them is that the pope "should consider himself as the father of all people and not only the Christians." Caviezel said, "This film is something that I believe was made by Mary for her Son" (Interview with Jim and Kerri Caviezel by Catholic priest Mario Knezovic, Radio "Mir" Medjugorje, December 2003; www.medjugorje.hr/int%20Caviezel%20ENG.htm). Caviezel also said that his goal with the movie is to "bring mankind back together." Caviezel said that he was given "a piece of the true cross, which he kept with him all of the time during the filming of the movie. He also had relics of "Padre Pio, St. Anthony of Padoua, Ste Maria Goretti, and saint Denisius, the Patron saint of Actors." He prayed the Rosary to Mary every day.

We believe that it is idolatrous to depict the Lord Jesus Christ in pictures and films. The Jesus in Mel Gibson's movie is depicted in the typical fashion with long hair, whereas the Bible is clear that Jesus would not have worn long hair (1 Cor. 11:14). Gibson got his inspiration for the long-haired Jesus from the Shroud of Turin. He attempted to re-create the face depicted on the Shroud.

Mel Gibson is famous for his roles in R-rated films such as Braveheart and Lethal Weapon.



_______________________________
Rick Miesel
Biblical Discernment Ministries
2702 Willowwood Ave.
Valparaiso, IN 46383
<rambdm@csinet.net>
http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm

Yet another review that is worth taking note of, because what it expresses will surely be commonplace: Nothing Could Have Prepared Me For What I Saw Last Night.

Exerpts:

"But there is nothing in my existence – nothing I could have read, seen, heard, thought, or known – that could have prepared me for what I saw on screen last night."

"There isn’t even the sense that one has just watched a movie. What it is, is an experience – on a level of primary emotion that is scarcely comprehensible. Every shred of human preconception or predisposition is utterly stripped away."

"For the first time, one gets a heart-stopping idea of the sense of madness that must have enveloped Jesus – a sense of the evil that was at His very elbow."

"The truth is this: Is it just a 'movie'? In a way, yes. But it goes far beyond that, in a fashion I’ve never felt – in any forum. We may think we 'know.' We know nothing. We’ve gone 2,000 years – used to the idea of a pleasant story, and a sanitized Christ. We expect the ending, because we’ve heard it so many times. God forgive us. This film tears that all away. It’s as close as any of us will ever get to knowing, until we fully know. Paul understood. 'Be urgent, in and out of season.'"

Thanks for that post. It reinforces for me the danger, once again, of disobeying the commandment against graven images, as did the articles on the Satanic influences behind the movie in the form of the Catholic "visionaries" to whom Gibson is so "indebted".

But I have another question. As I read this man's response to the movie I was reminded of Zech 12:10 which reads as follows:


I was further reminded of the scene in Bunyan's "Progress" where Christian views the cross, spiritually, and the burden falls from his back at last. Bunyan, in explaining this scene, or in a hint to it's understanding, provides the above verse in the margin.

My question is this. It seems to me that if Bunyan is correct in implying that true believers will "look upon me (Christ)whom they have pierced, and mourn" in a spiritual sense and by the power of the holy spirit, (I only checked Gill's commentary on this verse and he agrees) could this film be an attempt by the deceiver to conterfiet that true experience with the false?

Since that is what he does time and again, that is, to substitute the false for the true, and thus, in this case, to not only introduce false doctrine into the scripture concerning the crucifixtion, and to lure the deceived into Roman Catholicism, but also to convince the unwary that they have "looked upon me whom they have pierced", when, in fact, they have not, but rather looked upon a masterfully fabricated deception?

In other words, is one of the purposes of the film to create a false sence of fulfillment of the prophecy of Zech 12:10 for those who believe themselves to be Christians but are not?

In Him,

Gerry

While I am not supporting the movie the Passion of Christ I'd like to point out that the Biblical Discernment Ministries isn't really some place I'd go to get information on something. If you examine his website you'd see that people like R.C. Sproul and others are given a quick condemnation by this person. In fact as far as I can see he's the only real Christian. Also David Cloud is a rabid anti-Calvinist fundamentalist Baptist preacher another person I wouldn't got to for accurate information.